12: Adjunct Proceedings - Automotive User Interfaces and ...

These days, Internet-based virtual pastors/churches aims to
serve religious needs of these people.
Third wave: Connectivity and social network services
In the first years of “connectedness” users were sharing files
through the Internet (using services such as eMule, eDonkey)
and chatting (often in private networks just as in student
dormitories such as ICQ, later improved to Skype).
With increasing and everywhere connectivity (e. g., cable
networks, wireless LAN/WiFi, mobile cell phone operators,
satellite based communication) and emergence of Internetenabled
mobile devices such as cell phones, PDAs, Smartphones,
iPad, etc., the floor was opened for the whole new
class of social services providing up-to-date information of
its users on every spot of the planet. Social network services
(Xing, Facebook, Twitter) emerged, connecting people
globally based on common interests, political opinion, etc.
The strengths’ and broader establishment of such services
was (and is) further enhanced by rural depopulation and increasing
anonymity of the individual in large (Mega)cities.
2. TRANSITION TO THE SOCIALLY-
INSPIRED CAR
The past few years were finally dominated by the broad
emergence of wireless communication (IEEE 802.11p/WAVE)
which led to Internet connectivity at reasonable cost even in
the automotive domain. Nowadays almost each new car is
connected to the Internet – the transition from formerly independently
acting drivers and cars to connectedness with
’the rest of the planet’ has taken place. These days more
than 1 billion of cars are running worldwide (2009: 965 millions),
which is more than the number of active users of Facebook
(March 2012: 901 millions). This o↵ers huge potential
for social services in cars, but it might also be the source
for additional distraction. What we discover in vehicular
interfaces today is a still increasing number of sensors and
actuators, more and larger displays, and –enabled by Internet
availability and content stored in the cloud– feature-rich
applications (’Apps’) that have found their way into the car
and the driver is more and more unable to cope with all
this information. To counteract issues such as high mental
demand, cognitive overload, performance losses, etc. the
current research trend is coined by the catchwords “social
intelligence”, “social signal processing” – the ability of a system
(or human being)) to understand social behavior and
manage social signals of an interacting person. In the long
tradition of human-computer (and driver-vehicle) interaction,
computers have been socially ignorant – they have not
accounted the for the fact that humans decisions are always
socially inspired [9]. Next-generation computing and automotive
interfaces needs to include the essence of social intelligence
to become more e↵ective and safe [9]. Therefore it is
to be questioned why not should the ’car’ relieve the ’driver’
by taking over some tasks and accomplish them as e ciently
as the human driver by application of social intelligence.
The workshop of “social cars” aims at discussing the potential
of cars’ socializing one with the other (similar to how
humans are exchanging information), and not just translating
the Internet of things (IoT) paradigm into the car
domain. With the introduction of the concept of “social
cars” we attempt to make a blueprint of next generation
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Adjunct Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and
Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI '12), October 17–19, 2012, Portsmouth, NH, USA
in-vehicle technologies. This is di↵erent from what the Internet
of things (IoT) community is talking about in the
sense that IoT is su cient if it has its own ID that could
be passively identifiable, whereas social cars have more autonomous
capability, so they could serve as a more active
and even interactive social being.
We are interested in a “social service beyond Facebook &
Co.” that creates value for the information provider. Up
to now, Facebook users provide status information, social
status (feelings), and much more (photos, etc.) to all the
users in their network; but they do not get benefit out of it
– what is the worth of yet another “friend” in the network
(which you have never met or talked to before) or another
“I like it!” to a written comment?
Further on, we are not only interested in social interaction
between drivers (e. g., using Facebook on the Smartphone/incar
display while driving [5]), but rather focusing on the automotive
domain as one field with huge potential on enabling
social interactions. As like for humans, it would be relatively
easy for a car to provide status information all the time (location,
speed, driving destination) using all the on-board
information systems, navigation device, GPS information,
etc. For example, the National Highway Tra c Safety Administration
(NHTSA) in the U.S. is launching a real-world
test involving nearly 3,000 cars, trucks, and buses using volunteer
drivers in Ann Arbor, Michigan this summer [7]. The
vehicles will be equipped to continuously communicate over
wireless networks, exchanging information on location, direction
and speed 10 times a second with other similarly
equipped cars within about 1,000 feet. A computer analyzes
the information and issues danger warnings to drivers,
often before they can see the other vehicle.
Furthermore, it would be possible for the car to exchange
sort of social information (e. g., feelings and emotions) by
taking information from diagnostics systems such as engine
control unit (ECU) or powertrain control module (PCM)
into account (error codes, condition of engine, clutch, etc).
(Last but not least could also the mental/social state of the
driver be determined and used for car status adaptations).
Some issues to consider are:
• A car’s social status update might be used for other,
friendly, i. e., cars in same vicinity, same route or destination,
similar driving (=driver) behavior, etc., cars
to receive information such as a speed warning on icy
road ahead, reroute recommendation on tra c jam or
blocked route, etc. or to ease car sharing concepts or
car pooling service (same route).
• A social car would require a social environment (intelligent
roads with dynamically changing lanes; road
signs adapting to the driver, etc.); one step further:
social cars are not feeling well on the absence of other
social cars (similar to human individuals; they cannot
survive in isolation without other humans)
• Capabilities of social cars: (i) “learning”, e. g., a jam
every workday in the same region and at the same time
can be learned ! the car would recommend an alternative
route (in particular relevant for drivers using a
rental car in an unknown area) and (ii)“remembering”,
road sign with certain speed limit + cold temperature
outside (i. e., ice on the road) ! even when adhering to
the speed limit it is most likely that an accident would